Friday, April 12, 2024, Evan Kalish

Just under 30 minutes for a Friday NYTX? THATTRACKS - for me, that is. :) I enjoyed chipping away at this one. The northeast fell first, thanks to a correct guess right off the bat of IMPS for "No angels," after which, most of the Downs seemed straightforward. One I didn't get right away was "Misidentification in the DC Universe," which turned out to be the hilarious-to-me ITSAPLANE.

The next section I completed was the southeast thanks to correct guesses of SWEETONION for "Vidalia, for one" and SUMOS for "Athletes who wear mawashi," and despite an odd (to me) tone mismatch between the clue "It's unclear" and the answer DUNNO, the as-yet unexperienced TEXASTOAST, and the unknown to me NASONEX (Brand name for the steroid mometasone). 

I loved the pair of C/APs "Takes a dim view of" (PANS) and "Take a dim view of?" (HATEWATCH). So clever!

Other excellent C/APs:

"Promise of a future return?" (IOWEYOUONE)

"Partner who's deep undercover?" (BLANKETHOG)

"Considering retirement?" (SLEEPY)

"Hot topic in criminology?" (ARSON)

"Letters in an empty slot" (TBA)

"Field you can feel, maybe" (AURA)

I love the expression RIOT of color. So evocative! Also enjoyed RAINDANCE, TRAVELKIT, and MINTSAUCE.

As luck would have it, I seemed to know most of the answers in the MIDST of the puzzle including CURIE, TAN, TAHOE, and DENIM. I was not so lucky in the northwest - the section that took me the longest, due to an initial entry of Nepal where TIBET belonged and an unsuitable guess of 'tuxes' ("Rentals for some weddings") where TENTS were wanted. So, there's still a long way to go before I become an ELITE solver.

~Frannie.